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Let’s become an 'agile society'

Publication: CNBC, 19 Jan 2016

When a ship carrying Syrian refugees sank off the coast of Lesbos on October 28, 2015, the world saw a desperate need and overwhelming sadness and tragedy. It was a mounting geopolitical crisis – and, if the many thousands of volunteers were any indicator, the world wanted to help.

Lesbos is a symbol of the opportunity and challenge in front of us today. On one hand, thanks to online news, people became immediately aware of the crisis unfolding, and many were spurred to action. On the other hand, not all of that potential help was realized. Government and charitable resources weren't activated to their fullest capacity, people's skills weren't adequately deployed, and the crisis continues to mount.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, often called Industry 4.0, is imminent. We are living through a pace of technology advances like never before, and in this new era, contextual machines and materials, powered by software that connected by application programming interfaces (APIs), will drive change at an unprecedented level. For a moment, let's consider a world in which all of that breakthrough technology is maximized. Where the skills of our diverse global population are used to their maximum efficiency. And where governments operate without friction.